Strike while it's hot

"Jupiter, you are upset," said the Romans, "It is a sign you are wrong." When Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri is angry he, too, is wrong.

Three Jerusalem District Court judges accepted the appeal submitted by Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein's Office about the election results in Beit Shemesh. The police investigation, still ongoing to this day with an ever-expanding list of suspects accused of election fraud, is spilling over to senior officials in the ultra-Orthodox sector.

Immediately upon hearing the election results, Deputy Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) called for new elections to be held. Her fellow party members told her there was no chance of that happening. The scope of election fraud, she was told, did not cover the gap in votes (956) between the haredi candidate who won, Moshe Abutbol, and his defeated rival Eli Cohen. The next day, however, MK Miri Regev (Likud) appeared at a stormy protest rally held by Beit Shemesh residents screaming that the haredim have "stolen Beit Shemesh from us."

Yet again there were calls to hold new elections. As the facts continued piling up it became increasingly clear that the suspicions of a hostile haredi takeover of Beit Shemesh actually happened.

Immediately after the judges ordered that new elections be held, Deri lambasted them. The ruling is wrong and he is considering appealing to the Supreme Court, he said. Even though it's a waste of time, by all means -- appeal and lose, and in the meantime perhaps the police will translate their investigation and suspicions into criminal indictments against haredi activists.

If Deri were feeling confident in himself, and if he believed that the majority of Beit Shemesh residents indeed want Abutbol to be their mayor instead of Eli Cohen -- then he would conduct himself magnanimously and say that, to remove all doubt, there is no reason not to hold another election. He would roll up his sleeves and push for the new elections to be held as soon as possible.

But the Shas leader is not doing this. He is criticizing and threatening to appeal, which would postpone the needed election, and he knows why. This is the right moment to borrow an old phrase from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and associate it with Deri and his cohorts: "They are afraid."

The iron must now be struck while hot. The investigation must be expedited in order to ascertain who needs to be put on trial for election fraud. The court, meanwhile, needs to be pushed to come to a quick ruling -- mainly to ensure that two democratic developments occur: tight police and election committee oversight to make sure election fraud does not repeat itself, and the enlistment of the national leadership to throw its support behind Eli Cohen.

This is a fight between the Zionist camp comprised of secular and religious members against the monolithic haredi camp. It is mostly a struggle between the rule of law and enlightenment against the outlaws and sons of darkness.

Let it be clear: There is nothing wrong with voting for the Shas candidate and supporting his campaign; anywhere and at anytime. Just not in Beit Shemesh, 2014.

טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו